Activision says PS3 Call of Duty Elite confusion is not its fault

If you thought that signing up for the premium Call of Duty Elite service on your PS3 would get you access to DLC the same time as your Xbox 360 counterparts, well, Activision has no sympathy for you. The publisher says it never made any claims to that effect, and says anyone who thought that was the case "convinced themselves that it would happen because they wanted it to happen."

Activision has a very well-known, iron-clad contract with Microsoft that guarantees Call of Duty add-on content will be released first on the Xbox 360, and then trickle down to other platforms later. Microsoft paid Activision a whole bunch of money for this privilege. But then Activision launched a service called Call of Duty Elite, which gives gamers exclusive access to special in-game events, content, and more. One of the biggest selling points is that Elite members are the very first to access new DLC packs - but only on Xbox 360. That is exactly what happened this week, when Modern Warfare 3's first DLC pack was released.

Some PS3 gamers believed that Elite benefits were universal across both platforms because in the literature about Elite, it does not distinguish between Xbox 360 players and PS3 players. Nevertheless, Activision's Dan Amrich wrote in a blog took the counter position - the literature also never specifically says that the benefits are the same.

"It was never one of the things listed in the official benefits chart; it was never promised by any representative of Activision, Call of Duty, Elite, or its developers. Honestly? I think gamers just convinced themselves that it would happen because they wanted it to happen. That makes sense, but it doesn't make it true," said Amrich.